Written by Benjamin Percy
Penciled by Jan Bazaldua and Joshua Cassara
Published Feb-Sep 2020
Sunday, March 14, 2021
X-Force #7-12
Friday, March 12, 2021
The Feed S1 Ep 4
from Ready Steady Cut
https://readysteadycut.com/2019/11/22/recap-the-feed-season-1-episode-4-amazon-series/
The Feed Recap: Where’s The Source? A cure but not an answer.
November 22, 2019
Summary
The Feed Season 1, Episode 4 searches for more answers as Max is interrogated by Tom and Lawrence, with the stakes getting higher.
This recap of Amazon Series The Feed Season 1, Episode 4 contains significant spoilers. You can read the recap of the previous episode by clicking these words.
With one of their own suffering from the hack, the stakes are high in Episode 4. Tom (Guy Burnet) turns to his father to save Max after his violent outrage in the previous episode. Max is still not himself, and Tom offers to do some therapy on him. It’s clear when Tom answers the questions it is not the same Max, and when he mentions Sarah and Anton, he flinches a little.
Kate is looking for a solution in Episode 4, fearing that The Feed is under attack and becoming dangerous for her family. She heads to a hideout in the hope of finding a doctor so they can remove the feeds from her family, but danger lurks and she comes across a group of resisters who take a keen interest in her family.
Tom tries interviewing Max, but whatever is inside him senses that Lawrence is running the show. Lawrence berates Max, telling him that Sarah and Anton are dead and they will go after others. Max headbutts Lawrence to the floor. It is abundantly obvious that Max has been taken over.
The police raid the resister’s hideout, forcing Kate to escape and head to the recommended doctor. She books her family into an underground “feed remover” doctor who states she only has 12 hours to ensure she goes ahead with the appointment before they move location. Tom is eager for Kate to wait so they can find a solution to The Feed.
To help save Max from whoever has taken over his mind, Lawrence operates on him; he deactivates and reuploads his feed. When Max wakes up, he appears normal again.
We get a sense of respect from Tom to his father who claims what Lawrence did to save Max was genius. Lawrence asks for further help, meaning he will miss the appointment with Kate to remove the feed.
The Feed Season 1, Episode 4 ends with Tom linking up with Sarah’s brain which has immediate effects.
The Feed Version Notes
Ben looks into Max’s contacts.
The family bodyguard is in a relationship with Ben’s ex Miyu.
Ben keeps using his feed to have a fantasy with his ex. Meets his ex for a birthday meal. She reveals she is seeing Gill.
Danny is struggling to recover from his feed meltdown. Gets beaten up by resisters. Ends up in an “offliners” place. The offliner is a resister. They kiss.
https://readysteadycut.com/2019/11/22/recap-the-feed-season-1-episode-4-amazon-series/
The Feed S1 Ep 4
The Feed Recap: Where’s The Source? A cure but not an answer.
November 22, 2019
Summary
The Feed Season 1, Episode 4 searches for more answers as Max is interrogated by Tom and Lawrence, with the stakes getting higher.
This recap of Amazon Series The Feed Season 1, Episode 4 contains significant spoilers. You can read the recap of the previous episode by clicking these words.
With one of their own suffering from the hack, the stakes are high in Episode 4. Tom (Guy Burnet) turns to his father to save Max after his violent outrage in the previous episode. Max is still not himself, and Tom offers to do some therapy on him. It’s clear when Tom answers the questions it is not the same Max, and when he mentions Sarah and Anton, he flinches a little.
Kate is looking for a solution in Episode 4, fearing that The Feed is under attack and becoming dangerous for her family. She heads to a hideout in the hope of finding a doctor so they can remove the feeds from her family, but danger lurks and she comes across a group of resisters who take a keen interest in her family.
Tom tries interviewing Max, but whatever is inside him senses that Lawrence is running the show. Lawrence berates Max, telling him that Sarah and Anton are dead and they will go after others. Max headbutts Lawrence to the floor. It is abundantly obvious that Max has been taken over.
The police raid the resister’s hideout, forcing Kate to escape and head to the recommended doctor. She books her family into an underground “feed remover” doctor who states she only has 12 hours to ensure she goes ahead with the appointment before they move location. Tom is eager for Kate to wait so they can find a solution to The Feed.
To help save Max from whoever has taken over his mind, Lawrence operates on him; he deactivates and reuploads his feed. When Max wakes up, he appears normal again.
We get a sense of respect from Tom to his father who claims what Lawrence did to save Max was genius. Lawrence asks for further help, meaning he will miss the appointment with Kate to remove the feed.
The Feed Season 1, Episode 4 ends with Tom linking up with Sarah’s brain which has immediate effects.
The Feed Version Notes
Ben looks into Max’s contacts.
The family bodyguard is in a relationship with Ben’s ex Miyu.
Ben keeps using his feed to have a fantasy with his ex. Meets his ex for a birthday meal. She reveals she is seeing Gill.
Danny is struggling to recover from his feed meltdown. Gets beaten up by resisters. Ends up in an “offliners” place. The offliner is a resister. They kiss.
Thursday, March 11, 2021
Fargo S2 Ep 4: Fear and Trembling
From EW.com
https://ew.com/recap/fargo-season-2-episode-4/
Fargo S2 Ep 4: Fear and Trembling
Fargo recap: Fear and Trembling
Peggy makes a choice, the Gerhardts declare war, and Hanzee goes full Anton Chigurh.
By Kevin P. Sullivan
November 03, 2015 at 03:26 AM EST
One of the great successes thus far in the second season of Fargo has been watching how the writers weave together the many story lines both narratively and thematically and seeing them doing it in a way that is more cohesive and organic than the first season. With every episode, we begin to see more emotional overlap in stories that are connected but haven’t collided at full speed yet.
But this is Fargo. The crash is coming.
This week, in an episode called “Fear and Trembling” — likely a reference to Kierkegaard’s philosophical examination of faith through the lens of Abraham agreeing to sacrifice his son — we see characters across the show’s many story lines nostalgic for a time when things were “different,” whether it’s actually the case or not. Simone tells Mike Milligan, who has already lamented that the country isn’t what it used to be, that she wants to return to the ‘60s. Hanzee can’t get use to the quiet since returning from Vietnam. And I’d wager a guess that Ed wouldn’t mind going back to a time before Peggy ran over Rye with her car.
On top of all of this, the wonderfully unexpected opening takes us all the way back to Fargo, 1950, back when Otto Gerhardt’s position in the criminal hierarchy was temporarily thrown into question by the man who murdered his father. “Kill the king; be the king,” the man reminds Otto in a movie theater, as Dodd sits nearby (and closer than the man thinks). So Dodd does exactly that, taking out the man and leaving his pops to handle the rest.
This coup, while re-securing his father’s place at the head of the table, is clearly a formative event for Dodd, whose main dilemma comes out of the world no longer honoring the code he heard spoken in that movie theater. He’s killed the king, but he has no kingdom to show for it. The world he’s grown into isn’t as clear as it appeared that day. The Kansas City mafia has more in common with Goldman Sachs than the Corleones, and his father is caught in some fog between life and death. This conflict between the world and how Dodd wishes it were is causing turmoil outside the confines of his newsboy cap, as we see with the failed deal later in the episode. His old ways have only been destructive for the family, and I fear that Bear’s son, Charlie — who is sidestepping his father’s attempts to break free of old patterns — may become a casualty of it, as well.
And perhaps it’s a sign that I’m reading too much into a show when I find significance in a character’s donut choice, but Charlie did order an old-fashioned one, after all.
Just as Bear is being thwarted in securing a better life for his son, Betsy Solverson is having her legacy ripped aware from her by cancer. She and Lou got some news that was not — as they say — good when visiting her doctor for a checkup. The cancer is spreading, and she’s getting worse. There is some hope, however, in an experimental drug that the doctor calls Xanadu. The catch is that since this would be a trial, Betsy has a 50-50 chance of getting a placebo, like a Smartie, a detail so tragic and absurd that it’s actually hilarious, and it leads to a very real, emotional moment later in the episode when Lou asks if she wants to be treated differently. Betsy tells him “no” and that he needs to feed Molly more than beef jerky, before choking up. This wasn’t what she was promised. She was always supposed to be there for Molly, and yet the world has conspired against her. This feel is something she shares with Dodd and his lack of sons. Except that her sense of injustice comes from love rather than archaic entitlement.
That system of belief came toe-to-toe with the new world, and the results were what they’ve always been: war. It was finally time for the Gerhardts to meet with Joe Bulo to discuss the terms of the not-yet-hostile takeover. Floyd took the lead and all of the good one-liners. Her offer to Kansas City was fair: $1 million, plus 20 percent of the territory and a discount on Kansas City merch. The family would keep control of the operations, framing all of the proceedings as a partnership, not a sale. “The point is don’t assume just because I’m an old woman that my back is weak and my stomach is not strong,” Floyd says. Bulo likes the offer. In fact, he’d accept the offer if it was his to take, but that’s not how things stand. At the present, the management in KC worries about how viable a partnership with Fargo is when they have someone like Dodd storming into a donut shop and electrocuting two men.
Bulo’s counter-offer comes in the form of Mike Milligan & the Kitchen Brothers (not the prog-rock band) and one excellent scene of suspense. While most of the Gerhardts are at the hotel meeting with Kansas City, other members of the outfit have taken Otto to see a doctor about the drooling. We know that something’s coming, and soon enough, the people guarding the patriarch get that sense too. But none of us has any idea what direction it’s coming from. Again Fargo demonstrates that it can stand with the very best television of at least the last decade when it comes to staging dramatic suspense. The fallout is quick and brutal, with Mike Milligan sporting a sleeve gun right out of Taxi Driver. Otto is left alive, but the family’s hopes of maintaining control without spilling blood are not.
Although the show is named specifically after one Coen brothers movie, creator and showrunner Noah Hawley has spoken at length about how Fargo is not limited to looking to the 1996 film for inspiration. They have to entire Coen oeuvre to play with. Thus far this season, we’ve seen nods to A Serious Man and — to my great delight — No Country for Old Men. The homages to the Cormac McCarthy adaptation continue this week as Hanzee fills in as this story’s Anton Chigurh, silently searching for something belonging to his employers in a beat-up pickup, capable of violence that the people around him do not understand, as inevitable as death.
Hanzee picked up the trail on Rye Gerhardt, or what’s left of him, on the road outside of the Waffle Hut. There in the snow he found a shard of Peggy Blumquist’s headlight, which he then matched to the car currently parked at the auto shop. While inquiring about the car, Hanzee meets Sonny, a mechanic. The two have Vietnam in common, but Hanzee’s service was quite unlike “Mad Dog’s.” As the native, he went down into the tunnels to sniff out Charlie and rip his ears off. Although Hanzee’s origins aren’t as obscure as Chigurh with his ethnically unplaceable name, their shared “otherness” unites them — and the Southeast Asians twice mentioned in the episode by a racial slur — as being perceived as dangerous.
At this point, we know that hell is coming for Ed and Peggy. They did everything they could to cover up the tracks connecting them to Rye, but the grinder is acting funny and there are black boot prints leading from their fireplace. Not making their prospects any better is the fact that Peggy’s seminar — the one that she empties out the checking account to pay for — is in Sioux Falls, where a massacre is set to take place. Even without knowing all of the details, Lou is smart enough to see the writing on the wall, and he offers them an out. Peggy, newly empowered to never be told how to live her life, refuses, and she convinces Ed, who missed Vietnam and didn’t familiarize himself with death quite like Lou, to back her up.
The decision is undoubtedly a fork in the road for the Blumquists, similiar to Lester Nygaard’s encounter with Lorne Malvo in that casino elevator.
And if that wasn’t all ominous enough, the credits roll under Bon Iver and The Chieftains’ take on “Down in the Willow Garden,” an Appalachian murder ballad that most likely originated in Ireland and chronicles a woman’s poisoning, stabbing, and drowning.
Peggy, is this what you want?
Wednesday, March 10, 2021
The Stranger S1 Ep 2
from recaplab.com
https://www.recaplab.com/post/the-stranger-recap-s01e02-review
The Stranger Recap Episode 2
Image from The Stranger, currently streaming on Netflix
The most horrifying moment of the second episode of The Stranger for me was the attack on Heidi (Jennifer Saunders) by Katz (Paul Kaye). Heidi lived the most normal of lives -- she ran a café, she saved for years for a vacation, she raised her child. When the Stranger and her blonde accomplice approached Heidi and blackmailed her for ten thousand pounds, Heidi's initial reaction, like a law abiding person with nothing to hide, was to go to the police. Later, she decided to go see her daughter and confront her about the circumstances that led to the blackmail. Before she died, Heidi had decided to sacrifice years of savings to save her daughter from humiliation and likely a ruined future.
Kimberly, Heidi's daughter, was in university. Because her education would have left her deeply in debt, Kimberly decided to join a website that introduced her to wealthy men. It was online prostitution. Somehow, the blackmailer found out. Heidi saw her daughter's bright future going down the drain if her secret came out, so she decided to pay the blackmailer.
Heidi was alone in her café, sorting out the accounts, when Katz came knocking. He introduced himself as police and claimed he knew about the blackmail. He was interested in everything she could tell him about the blackmailers. Heidi figured out that Katz was lying and tried to call for help. Katz overpowered her, however. With a bullet wound in her leg, Heidi tried to be quiet, because Katz threatened Kimberly. To her last breath, Heidi still fought to save her daughter.
In a show that exposes the secrets of good natured neighbours and friends, Heidi seemed like a thoroughly decent person. This is why it was so difficult to watch what happened to her. Katz, it turned out, was a real police officer; he worked with Johanna.
Corinne still had not come home. Adam hid the truth from his neighbour Tripp, who kept asking about Corinne. Adam, however, confessed that he did not know where Corinne was to Vicky. Vicky covered for Corinne at a school activity because Corinne sent her a text message saying she would not be in.
Image from The Stranger, currently streaming on Netflix
Adam was surprised when Vicky told him she knew he and Corinne were having problems; as far as Adam knew, he and Corinne were fine until the Stranger came along. Vicky said that Corinne had been stressed in the last few weeks.
Vicky was struggling with her own issues; she now knew why her daughter Ella was upset. Someone uploaded graphic photos from Ella's phone online. Ella denied that those were her photos, and Vicky believed her. Adam advised Vicky to call a family lawyer because Ella was 14 years old and what happened to her was child abuse.
Daisy, Ella's sister, figured out what to do with the severed alpaca head in Thomas's closet. Daisy, Thomas, and Mike went to bury the head in the woods; Daisy was going to make the scene appear as though there was a satanic ritual. They were interrupted by the appearance of a man in the shadows. The three got separated as they ran and Mike, with the garbage bag that used to hold the alpaca head still in his hand, was found by Johanna and Wes.
Using an app in Dante's phone, Johanna and Wes found the bonfire site. The app was also how they tracked down the three friends to the woods. After seeing Thomas, Mike, and Daisy in the hospital visiting Dante, Johanna was convinced they knew more than they were saying.
That the Stranger was a blackmailer was a surprise to me because she did not give any indication that she wanted money from Adam in the previous episode. A character doing dastardly things for money was a far less interesting character than someone who just wanted chaos for the sake of chaos, or truth for the sake of truth. The Stranger could very well be both but, as of this episode, all we knew was that a policeman, Katz, was willing to kill to find her.
Image from The Stranger, currently streaming on Netlifx
Strays
■ Heidi's café was Brown Sugar Café. Aw. Her final gift to Johanna was a penis shaped cake delivered in a pink box with a balloon. It was funny, sweet, and very Heidi, based on the little we know about her at this point.
■ Johanna and Heidi agreed to meet at Heidi's café on the night Heidi was attacked.
■ When the blackmailers mentioned the website, Heidi first thought her husband Ian was cheating on her.
■ Adam continued to hide Corinne's disappearance from the boys.
■ This episode was the first mention of a sickly student in the school.
■ Mike believed that someone spiked his drink at the bonfire.
■ Adam purchased DNA testing kits to check the paternity of the boys.
■ Adam asked Martin to look for Suzanne Hope. It turned out that Martin had been using his free time to look into missing cases. Martin found Suzanne's home address fairly quickly. When Adam went there, however, Suzanne's husband attacked him at the mention of Corinne's name.
■ Adam's father Ed (Anthony Head) was a silent partner in the company trying to evict Martin from his home.The relationship between father and son was clearly not great.
■ Adam grew up on the street where Martin lived.
■ Bob and another member of the football club, Jason, wanted to know where Corinne was. They suspected Corinne of stealing a substantial amount of money from the football club.
■ I meant to mention this in my previous recap, but one tiny detail I noticed in these first two episodes was how the camera would pan on Corinne's earrings. The earrings would be mentioned later in the series.
#TheStranger #RichardArmitage #HarlanCoben
https://www.recaplab.com/post/the-stranger-recap-s01e02-review
The Stranger S1 Ep 2
The Stranger Recap Episode 2
Image from The Stranger, currently streaming on Netflix
The most horrifying moment of the second episode of The Stranger for me was the attack on Heidi (Jennifer Saunders) by Katz (Paul Kaye). Heidi lived the most normal of lives -- she ran a café, she saved for years for a vacation, she raised her child. When the Stranger and her blonde accomplice approached Heidi and blackmailed her for ten thousand pounds, Heidi's initial reaction, like a law abiding person with nothing to hide, was to go to the police. Later, she decided to go see her daughter and confront her about the circumstances that led to the blackmail. Before she died, Heidi had decided to sacrifice years of savings to save her daughter from humiliation and likely a ruined future.
Kimberly, Heidi's daughter, was in university. Because her education would have left her deeply in debt, Kimberly decided to join a website that introduced her to wealthy men. It was online prostitution. Somehow, the blackmailer found out. Heidi saw her daughter's bright future going down the drain if her secret came out, so she decided to pay the blackmailer.
Heidi was alone in her café, sorting out the accounts, when Katz came knocking. He introduced himself as police and claimed he knew about the blackmail. He was interested in everything she could tell him about the blackmailers. Heidi figured out that Katz was lying and tried to call for help. Katz overpowered her, however. With a bullet wound in her leg, Heidi tried to be quiet, because Katz threatened Kimberly. To her last breath, Heidi still fought to save her daughter.
In a show that exposes the secrets of good natured neighbours and friends, Heidi seemed like a thoroughly decent person. This is why it was so difficult to watch what happened to her. Katz, it turned out, was a real police officer; he worked with Johanna.
Corinne still had not come home. Adam hid the truth from his neighbour Tripp, who kept asking about Corinne. Adam, however, confessed that he did not know where Corinne was to Vicky. Vicky covered for Corinne at a school activity because Corinne sent her a text message saying she would not be in.
Image from The Stranger, currently streaming on Netflix
Adam was surprised when Vicky told him she knew he and Corinne were having problems; as far as Adam knew, he and Corinne were fine until the Stranger came along. Vicky said that Corinne had been stressed in the last few weeks.
Vicky was struggling with her own issues; she now knew why her daughter Ella was upset. Someone uploaded graphic photos from Ella's phone online. Ella denied that those were her photos, and Vicky believed her. Adam advised Vicky to call a family lawyer because Ella was 14 years old and what happened to her was child abuse.
Daisy, Ella's sister, figured out what to do with the severed alpaca head in Thomas's closet. Daisy, Thomas, and Mike went to bury the head in the woods; Daisy was going to make the scene appear as though there was a satanic ritual. They were interrupted by the appearance of a man in the shadows. The three got separated as they ran and Mike, with the garbage bag that used to hold the alpaca head still in his hand, was found by Johanna and Wes.
Using an app in Dante's phone, Johanna and Wes found the bonfire site. The app was also how they tracked down the three friends to the woods. After seeing Thomas, Mike, and Daisy in the hospital visiting Dante, Johanna was convinced they knew more than they were saying.
That the Stranger was a blackmailer was a surprise to me because she did not give any indication that she wanted money from Adam in the previous episode. A character doing dastardly things for money was a far less interesting character than someone who just wanted chaos for the sake of chaos, or truth for the sake of truth. The Stranger could very well be both but, as of this episode, all we knew was that a policeman, Katz, was willing to kill to find her.
Image from The Stranger, currently streaming on Netlifx
Strays
■ Heidi's café was Brown Sugar Café. Aw. Her final gift to Johanna was a penis shaped cake delivered in a pink box with a balloon. It was funny, sweet, and very Heidi, based on the little we know about her at this point.
■ Johanna and Heidi agreed to meet at Heidi's café on the night Heidi was attacked.
■ When the blackmailers mentioned the website, Heidi first thought her husband Ian was cheating on her.
■ Adam continued to hide Corinne's disappearance from the boys.
■ This episode was the first mention of a sickly student in the school.
■ Mike believed that someone spiked his drink at the bonfire.
■ Adam purchased DNA testing kits to check the paternity of the boys.
■ Adam asked Martin to look for Suzanne Hope. It turned out that Martin had been using his free time to look into missing cases. Martin found Suzanne's home address fairly quickly. When Adam went there, however, Suzanne's husband attacked him at the mention of Corinne's name.
■ Adam's father Ed (Anthony Head) was a silent partner in the company trying to evict Martin from his home.The relationship between father and son was clearly not great.
■ Adam grew up on the street where Martin lived.
■ Bob and another member of the football club, Jason, wanted to know where Corinne was. They suspected Corinne of stealing a substantial amount of money from the football club.
■ I meant to mention this in my previous recap, but one tiny detail I noticed in these first two episodes was how the camera would pan on Corinne's earrings. The earrings would be mentioned later in the series.
#TheStranger #RichardArmitage #HarlanCoben
Tuesday, March 9, 2021
Upload S1 Ep 6: The Sleepover
From Ready Steady Cut
https://readysteadycut.com/2020/05/01/recap-upload-season-1-episode-6-sleepover-amazon-prime-original-series/
Upload season 1, episode 6 recap – What happened in “Sleepover”?
May 1, 2020
Daniel Hart0
Summary
Upload season 1, episode 6, “Sleepover” sees Ingrid spending time with Nathan’s niece and Nora conflicted about her feelings.
Previous EpisodeView allNext Episode
This recap of Amazon Original series Upload season 1, episode 6, “Sleepover” contains significant spoilers.
Access the archive of all episode recaps and reviews.
How does Upload season 1, episode 6, “Sleepover” begin?
Episode 6 is Nora centric mostly — it opens up with Nora spending time with her father via VR while he’s in hospital. Her father asks about Nathan and suggests that she gets to know her date Bryant properly as that could be the difference.
Does Nathan know Nora has a date?
Well, Ingrid has offered to have Nathan’s niece for a sleepover and he introduces his niece to Nora. Nathan then asks Nora if she’d like to watch the sunset with him but she says she can’t because she has a date.
You can tell Nathan is jealous in this scene.
What’s the sleepover like?
The niece realizes how mean and nasty Ingrid’s family are to Ingrid. The dinner gets too much and Ingrid kicks her entire family out of the house and then she starts the sleepover with the niece, including doing each other’s hair.
How does Nora’s date go?
She tries to make the conversation deeper with Bryant which works to an extent. He pays for the meal and asks if they can talk more so the sex is hot later. Nora takes Bryant to her work and he wants to check out the avatars. Bryant is fascinated by them and keeps calling them dead, which offends Nora.
Nora bores him off so she can talk to Nathan.
Meanwhile, Nathan finally gets in touch with Jamie who’s about to head into a meeting so quickly put the phone down. This conspiratory story is building up slowly.
Dora turns up and Nathan asks her how her date went. Nora video calls Nathan from her office and shows him around. Nathan claims her office is amazing. Nora returns to Lakeview and shows Nathan the stars.
How does Upload season 1, episode 6, “Sleepover” end?
Nora tells Nathan that some of his memories were damaged and she asks him if he remembers trying to make a deal for his project called Beyond which he did not want to sell. She tells Nathan that it seems what happened to him wasn’t an accident.
Nathan asks if she reckons Jamie did something but then they decide to change the subject.
Episode 6 starts the romance between Nathan and Nora — Nathan tells her that she’s his favorite person and has felt more optimistic when she’s around and felt a bit jealous when she went on her date.
The episode ends with Nora falling asleep next to him on the grass the next day and her supervisor catches her.
Other points
Nora tries selling Nathan a Taco Bell “Crunch Me”.
Luke’s angel is at war with him for cheating the system and takes one of his fingers and then his p***s. Her supervisor catches her and asks her to apologize.
Nathan’s niece tells Nathan that Nora is cute and can tell he likes her.
Ingrid gives Nathan’s niece Nathan’s shirt which she stole from his car. She reveals she set it to Occupant Priority which evidently didn’t work.
https://readysteadycut.com/2020/05/01/recap-upload-season-1-episode-6-sleepover-amazon-prime-original-series/
Upload S1 Ep 6: The Sleepover
Upload season 1, episode 6 recap – What happened in “Sleepover”?
May 1, 2020
Daniel Hart0
Summary
Upload season 1, episode 6, “Sleepover” sees Ingrid spending time with Nathan’s niece and Nora conflicted about her feelings.
Previous EpisodeView allNext Episode
This recap of Amazon Original series Upload season 1, episode 6, “Sleepover” contains significant spoilers.
Access the archive of all episode recaps and reviews.
How does Upload season 1, episode 6, “Sleepover” begin?
Episode 6 is Nora centric mostly — it opens up with Nora spending time with her father via VR while he’s in hospital. Her father asks about Nathan and suggests that she gets to know her date Bryant properly as that could be the difference.
Does Nathan know Nora has a date?
Well, Ingrid has offered to have Nathan’s niece for a sleepover and he introduces his niece to Nora. Nathan then asks Nora if she’d like to watch the sunset with him but she says she can’t because she has a date.
You can tell Nathan is jealous in this scene.
What’s the sleepover like?
The niece realizes how mean and nasty Ingrid’s family are to Ingrid. The dinner gets too much and Ingrid kicks her entire family out of the house and then she starts the sleepover with the niece, including doing each other’s hair.
How does Nora’s date go?
She tries to make the conversation deeper with Bryant which works to an extent. He pays for the meal and asks if they can talk more so the sex is hot later. Nora takes Bryant to her work and he wants to check out the avatars. Bryant is fascinated by them and keeps calling them dead, which offends Nora.
Nora bores him off so she can talk to Nathan.
Meanwhile, Nathan finally gets in touch with Jamie who’s about to head into a meeting so quickly put the phone down. This conspiratory story is building up slowly.
Dora turns up and Nathan asks her how her date went. Nora video calls Nathan from her office and shows him around. Nathan claims her office is amazing. Nora returns to Lakeview and shows Nathan the stars.
How does Upload season 1, episode 6, “Sleepover” end?
Nora tells Nathan that some of his memories were damaged and she asks him if he remembers trying to make a deal for his project called Beyond which he did not want to sell. She tells Nathan that it seems what happened to him wasn’t an accident.
Nathan asks if she reckons Jamie did something but then they decide to change the subject.
Episode 6 starts the romance between Nathan and Nora — Nathan tells her that she’s his favorite person and has felt more optimistic when she’s around and felt a bit jealous when she went on her date.
The episode ends with Nora falling asleep next to him on the grass the next day and her supervisor catches her.
Other points
Nora tries selling Nathan a Taco Bell “Crunch Me”.
Luke’s angel is at war with him for cheating the system and takes one of his fingers and then his p***s. Her supervisor catches her and asks her to apologize.
Nathan’s niece tells Nathan that Nora is cute and can tell he likes her.
Ingrid gives Nathan’s niece Nathan’s shirt which she stole from his car. She reveals she set it to Occupant Priority which evidently didn’t work.
Monday, March 8, 2021
The Expanse S1 Ep 4: CQB
from syfy.com
https://www.syfy.com/the-expanse/episodes/season/1/episode/4/cqb
On Earth, Chrisjen Avasarala is trying to get a ship to the Donnager to rescue the Canterbury survivors that have been taken prisoner by the Martian Navy. She lays on the roof of her Westchester home with her grandson, gazing at the stars, worried about the future of Earth, Mars, the Belt … and perhaps the entire solar system.
At Tycho Station, we meet Fred Johnson, the head of operations on the construction of a massive ship known as the Nauvoo, which will send a group of Mormons on a 100-year voyage. The Mormon representative with him hints at rumblings that Johnson should be replaced due to his ties to the OPA, though after delivering some not-so-subtle threats, Johnson manages to keep his position. As he asks the Mormons to get off the ship so his crew can continue with calibration work, Johnson gets on his radio and demands an update on the Donnager …
On board the Donnager, Captain Yao thinks the mystery ship that's still fast approaching is coming from Naomi, whom she and Lopez believe is OPA. Captain Yao insists that Mars had nothing to do with destroying the Canterbury and tells Holden to recant his statement. Holden refuses.
The approaching ship breaks apart into several smaller vessels and fires torpedoes. Blue battle lights warn Alex, Naomi, Amos and Shed to strap in and prepare for a bumpy ride ...
Captain Yao is unfazed, confident in the defensive and offensive capabilities of the mighty Donnager. However, the ship's PDC cannons aren't very effective against the attacker's advanced weaponry. The Donnager takes a beating, forced to switch to short-range rail guns to hopefully finish the job.
The Donnager's main drive goes out, causing the interior of the ship to temporarily lose gravity. This freaks out Alex, whom Shed tries to help by offering some of his cinnamon sticks … one final act of kindness before the medic is suddenly DECAPITATED by gunfire that punches through the ship. Hindered by the lack of gravity, Naomi, Amos and Alex still manage to plug the holes.
As the main drive kicks back in, the survivors are disturbed by the sight of Shed's blood splashing down upon his headless corpse … and by the fact that they only have a few more hours of air left in their holding cell. Alex takes a sedative so he won't use up much oxygen, trusting Amos to carry him when the time comes to evacuate.
The Donnager is bested by the mystery vessel in CQB (Close Quarter Battle). As Holden recognizes the ship as similar to the one that destroyed the Cant and theorizes that whoever is attacking them is trying to frame Mars for everything, the Donnager prepares to be boarded by the attackers. Captain Yao orders Lopez to get Holden off the ship so he can testify to all these events.
En route to their escape shuttle, Holden and his Martian escorts are attacked by mystery soldiers, armed with advanced weaponry and faceplates that obscure their features. Several members on both sides are killed in the battle, and one of the wounded mystery soldiers dies before Lopez can get him to talk.
Lopez suspects these attackers are also responsible for what happened at Phoebe Station. After Holden inquires, Lopez explains that the Donnager was dispatched to Phoebe Station after it went silent for several weeks, where they found everyone on board incinerated and all computer cores destroyed. Somebody was covering something up … but who, and what?
Lopez and Holden rescue Naomi, Amos and Alex, with Lopez demanding they all testify that Mars had nothing to do with the Canterbury's destruction. After a desperate run for the hangar bay, they manage to make it aboard the good ship Tachi before Captain Yao scuttles the Donnager. The mighty Martian warship self-destructs as the Tachi blasts off with a groggy Alex at the wheel.
Meanwhile, at Ceres Station, Miller identifies the corpse of Julie Mao's hot date, Nightbelter31, as Bizi Betiko. Miller visits Bizi's apartment building, where he finds a Slingshot Club, practitioners of an illegal extreme sport in which homemade one-person crafts 'slingshot' around the gravity wells of planets and other celestial bodies. Miller is surprised to find that the soon-to-be-doomed Slingshotter whose progress is currently being monitored on the screen is identified as Bizi Betiko.
So if that's Bizi Betiko … who's the stiff in the morgue?
Back at the morgue, Miller continually scans the body of Nightbelter31 and comes up with a different identification every time. Octavia Muss says the stiff has an "I.D. Spoofer Mod," an implant used to hide one's true identity. Upon further investigation, Octavia discovers that the body also has an implanted Memory Crypt, which Miller crudely excavates. Octavia scans the device and finds government documents, claiming the stiff was a "data broker." But what data was he brokering?
As Octavia leaves the morgue, Miller once again tries to contact Havelock, who's gone missing after the rioting on Ceres. However, it would appear that Miller's partner isn't dead - the Brothel Madam finds him severely wounded but very much alive after being IMPALED THROUGH THE CHEST WITH A SPIKE.
https://www.syfy.com/the-expanse/episodes/season/1/episode/4/cqb
The Expanse S1 Ep 4: CQB
On Earth, Chrisjen Avasarala is trying to get a ship to the Donnager to rescue the Canterbury survivors that have been taken prisoner by the Martian Navy. She lays on the roof of her Westchester home with her grandson, gazing at the stars, worried about the future of Earth, Mars, the Belt … and perhaps the entire solar system.
At Tycho Station, we meet Fred Johnson, the head of operations on the construction of a massive ship known as the Nauvoo, which will send a group of Mormons on a 100-year voyage. The Mormon representative with him hints at rumblings that Johnson should be replaced due to his ties to the OPA, though after delivering some not-so-subtle threats, Johnson manages to keep his position. As he asks the Mormons to get off the ship so his crew can continue with calibration work, Johnson gets on his radio and demands an update on the Donnager …
On board the Donnager, Captain Yao thinks the mystery ship that's still fast approaching is coming from Naomi, whom she and Lopez believe is OPA. Captain Yao insists that Mars had nothing to do with destroying the Canterbury and tells Holden to recant his statement. Holden refuses.
The approaching ship breaks apart into several smaller vessels and fires torpedoes. Blue battle lights warn Alex, Naomi, Amos and Shed to strap in and prepare for a bumpy ride ...
Captain Yao is unfazed, confident in the defensive and offensive capabilities of the mighty Donnager. However, the ship's PDC cannons aren't very effective against the attacker's advanced weaponry. The Donnager takes a beating, forced to switch to short-range rail guns to hopefully finish the job.
The Donnager's main drive goes out, causing the interior of the ship to temporarily lose gravity. This freaks out Alex, whom Shed tries to help by offering some of his cinnamon sticks … one final act of kindness before the medic is suddenly DECAPITATED by gunfire that punches through the ship. Hindered by the lack of gravity, Naomi, Amos and Alex still manage to plug the holes.
As the main drive kicks back in, the survivors are disturbed by the sight of Shed's blood splashing down upon his headless corpse … and by the fact that they only have a few more hours of air left in their holding cell. Alex takes a sedative so he won't use up much oxygen, trusting Amos to carry him when the time comes to evacuate.
The Donnager is bested by the mystery vessel in CQB (Close Quarter Battle). As Holden recognizes the ship as similar to the one that destroyed the Cant and theorizes that whoever is attacking them is trying to frame Mars for everything, the Donnager prepares to be boarded by the attackers. Captain Yao orders Lopez to get Holden off the ship so he can testify to all these events.
En route to their escape shuttle, Holden and his Martian escorts are attacked by mystery soldiers, armed with advanced weaponry and faceplates that obscure their features. Several members on both sides are killed in the battle, and one of the wounded mystery soldiers dies before Lopez can get him to talk.
Lopez suspects these attackers are also responsible for what happened at Phoebe Station. After Holden inquires, Lopez explains that the Donnager was dispatched to Phoebe Station after it went silent for several weeks, where they found everyone on board incinerated and all computer cores destroyed. Somebody was covering something up … but who, and what?
Lopez and Holden rescue Naomi, Amos and Alex, with Lopez demanding they all testify that Mars had nothing to do with the Canterbury's destruction. After a desperate run for the hangar bay, they manage to make it aboard the good ship Tachi before Captain Yao scuttles the Donnager. The mighty Martian warship self-destructs as the Tachi blasts off with a groggy Alex at the wheel.
Meanwhile, at Ceres Station, Miller identifies the corpse of Julie Mao's hot date, Nightbelter31, as Bizi Betiko. Miller visits Bizi's apartment building, where he finds a Slingshot Club, practitioners of an illegal extreme sport in which homemade one-person crafts 'slingshot' around the gravity wells of planets and other celestial bodies. Miller is surprised to find that the soon-to-be-doomed Slingshotter whose progress is currently being monitored on the screen is identified as Bizi Betiko.
So if that's Bizi Betiko … who's the stiff in the morgue?
Back at the morgue, Miller continually scans the body of Nightbelter31 and comes up with a different identification every time. Octavia Muss says the stiff has an "I.D. Spoofer Mod," an implant used to hide one's true identity. Upon further investigation, Octavia discovers that the body also has an implanted Memory Crypt, which Miller crudely excavates. Octavia scans the device and finds government documents, claiming the stiff was a "data broker." But what data was he brokering?
As Octavia leaves the morgue, Miller once again tries to contact Havelock, who's gone missing after the rioting on Ceres. However, it would appear that Miller's partner isn't dead - the Brothel Madam finds him severely wounded but very much alive after being IMPALED THROUGH THE CHEST WITH A SPIKE.
Sunday, March 7, 2021
Your Honor S1 Ep 10: Finale
from Vulture.com
https://www.vulture.com/article/your-honor-finale-recap-episode-10-part-ten.html
Your Honor Finale Recap: Dad?
By Scott Tobias
Photo: Skip Bolen/SHOWTIME
https://www.vulture.com/article/your-honor-finale-recap-episode-10-part-ten.html
Your Honor S1 Ep 10: Finale
Your Honor Finale Recap: Dad?
By Scott Tobias
Photo: Skip Bolen/SHOWTIME
There was always going to be a lot — too much, really — to sort out in the Your Honor finale, which not only has to conclude the trial of Carlo Baxter, but mete out justice to Michael and Adam Desiato, and pay off the involvement of Nancy Costello, Lee Delamere, Charlie, and Kofi’s little brother Eugene, who is the only surviving member of his family. And it was hard to guess what shape justice would take, what narrative punishment would be appropriate for the Desiatos, who have many more deaths on their consciences than just Rocco Baxter and who could not be expected to get off scot-free.
It’s our demand as viewers that screenwriters be the administers of cosmic justice, which generally produces a tidiness that real life almost never mimics. And in writer Peter Moffat’s defense, there’s probably no ending that could balance the equation here: Kofi’s murder and the subsequent death of his mother and three of his siblings cannot be answered by any machinations of the plot, save maybe for the deaths of both Desiatos, three-fourths of the Baxters, and Big and Little Mo. (And perhaps a maiming of Charlie. Or an end to his political ambitions.) But Moffat essentially chooses The Godfather Part III ending, with the son catching an accidental bullet and the father cradling him in his arms, having paid the steepest price for his sins. It’s not a one-to-one comparison — Adam is guilty, after all, and Mary Corleone is an innocent — but the parallels are unmistakable.
But before casting judgment on the ending, let’s issue some verdicts on other parts of this rocky finale. One benefit of Moffat pulling the strings as relentlessly as he does is that many of the major characters have to confront the same “What would you do?” question that led to this cascading tragedy. Nancy and Lee, especially, have to at least puzzle over it a little before they can righteously grill Michael for his lies. Nancy discovers that the Desiatos’ clever alibi, a veteran watching the cemetery gate near Robin Desiato’s grave, remembers exactly when they visited, since it was the same day his unit was massacred in Vietnam. Lee also discovers that the blue station wagon was “stolen” the day after Rocco’s death and is mostly able to piece together the rest from there.
The strongest scene by far in the finale has Lee coaxing the truth out of Michael in chambers and hearing a full-throated defense of his behavior. “Justice and principle do not take precedence over the life of your child,” he tells her. And if the truth were to come out to the Baxters, Jimmy Baxter would kill Adam. (“Would the death of another 17-year-old make everything better?!”) Michael is asking Lee, at a minimum, to allow him to take the fall for his son, but she isn’t having it. He manipulated her into representing Kofi and now she’s devoted to seeking justice for her client and her client’s little brother, who has some damning testimony he’s ready to deliver for the prosecution. She’s giving Michael a chance to cleanse a fraction of his soul — and when it comes time for him to do it, he once again chooses Adam over the Joneses.
But let’s get serious here: Absolutely no way this jury doesn’t convict Carlo Baxter for murder. They don’t need Eugene to tell them that Kofi had stepped into Carlo’s cell to clear up his role in the whole affair. They already have a key piece of Carlo’s testimony crumbling under cross-examination and Carlo reacting by calling the prosecutor a “stupid cunt.” Carlo’s lawyer did not want her to have a “Perry Mason” moment and that’s exactly what happened—except here, the jury didn’t give Perry Mason the win. Despite Michael putting his thumb on the scales of justice, the show doesn’t do enough to make a “Not Guilty” verdict seem plausible. Carlo cannot be coached out of his vile impulses.
The show also botches the little bit of intrigue around Robin Desiato and her affair, a secret which Michael had been keeping from his son. One piece of this subplot made it to the “Previously On” sequence without ever making it into the actual show, but it’s never clear why Robin’s affair has much relevance to the larger story anyway. There’s a thin thematic thread here about Michael’s other attempt to “protect” his son from the truth, but the entire thing could have been edited out of Your Honor without anything significant being lost. We’d have gotten less Margo Martindale, but Margo Martindale’s time should have been better used regardless.
Now to the ending. Justice has to be delivered outside the courtroom, and Moffat tries to make it as poetic as possible by having Eugene buy a gun using the money from the signed Mariano Rivera baseball that Kofi had found in Michael’s car. If it wasn’t already obvious that Adam’s fate is connected to Michael’s moral failings, then Michael indirectly paying for the gun that shoots his son hammers it home. There’s a kind of justice to Adam getting killed, because Adam never did take responsibility for what he did, despite its impact on his behavior in the aftermath. And of course there’s justice in Michael losing a child just as Jimmy Baxter did—and just as another Michael, Corleone, did in the underrated yet significantly diminished final chapter to Francis Ford Coppola’s gangster epic.
But once again, tragedy has been heaped on the shoulders of another member of the Jones family. Eugene has survived his brother’s death at Carlo Baxter’s hands and the rest of his family’s death in an explosion ordered by Carlo’s father. It might be a comfort to him that his stray bullet caught the young man whose hit-and-run set all these events in motion, but he’s going to leave assuming that he missed Carlo and shot a blameless person. And he may or may not return to the Desire gang, which had set Kofi up on the car-stealing job and made him take the fall for Rocco’s death.
Perhaps that’s the intended point for a show where most of the loss has been heaped upon a Black family that isn’t powerful enough to defend itself. All Kofi Jones did was get paid to drive a car that wasn’t his. While Michael tried to give Kofi the best defense, he ultimately could not take responsibility for an innocent man taking the fall for his son, and he refused to allow Kofi’s only surviving family member to testify on his brother’s behalf. As a good liberal judge, Michael had intervened personally to block a false drug charge against Kofi’s mother, but the moment the stakes got personal, his devotion to racial justice abandoned him. That’s a solid thematic note for Your Honor to strike, but it ends instead on the bookend of another 17-year-old taking his last breaths, and on Michael screaming and crying. It’s all made to feel like his tragedy, and his alone.
Beignets
• “I can smell a bluff like the mustard pot of a bad whore.” Some extremely colorful figurative language from Big Mo, though she probably does have Lee pegged in that scene.
Michael telling Adam the story of cracking Robin’s rib from hugging her too hard leads to a neat payoff later, when Adam finally meets Jimmy Baxter face-to-face and gets what seems like the Fredo embrace.
• The Vietnam veteran spoiling Michael’s made-up alibi makes his cover-up efforts a near-comprehensive failure. Walter White got out of all kinds of jams in Breaking Bad, but even Michael’s smaller and subtler fibs backfired at one point or another.
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